Campaign financing has become a serious problem in American society. Politicians are less concerned with their constituents and more concerned with helping the corporations and private interests that help fund their campaigns. This leads to wasteful spending on earmarked bills as well as poor legislation with regard to regulation.
Campaign Politics: An Unsustainable System
One of the major checks on corporate power is governmental regulation. Its purpose is to protect the interest of the public and do what is best for the country, preventing corporations from taking advantage of less powerful consumers. The evolution of the political system, specifically the electoral and campaign system has jeopardized this governmental protection. Corporate financing of campaigns and donations to key politicians and committee leaders is influencing politics more and more. This is resulting in less politician loyalty to the public and more loyalty to corporate interests.
Buying Your Vote
Campaign spending has risen year after year, with strong correlations seen between spending and electoral success. This could mean that the issues are tending to not be as important as a candidate’s ability to market themselves with campaign commercials, rallies, events, signs and literature. This may lead to politicians’ lessened concern about how to appeal to voters in terms of a political platform. If a politician has a lessened loyalty to their constituents, then where do their loyalties lie? Since it has become a necessity to have strong financial backing in order to gain any major political office, their loyalties fall to whoever finances their campaign. This results in a highest bidder scenario in which a politician panders to a Political Action Committee (PAC) or interest group. They receive campaign contributions from these organizations, financed by private interests, and in return, provide favorable legislation and earmarked bills. This undermines the purpose of government regulation by creating a conflict of interest. For the 2002, 2004, and 2006 congressional elections alone over 1.7 billion dollars was dished out to candidates in both parties (Cash Flow). Companies also aren’t picky about who they donate to. Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate interests donated funds almost equally to both the Democratic Party and the GOP (Cash Flow). This should be especially alarming to voters because it means that corporate interests don’t care who gets put into office, just that they have some type of power over them. One example of a corporation directly benefitting from such a scenario is the case of kSARIA Corp. This company produced a fiber optic cable repair tool which it was trying to market to the Navy. Instead of heading to the Navy, the customer who would be using such a device, the company decided to grease the right wheels in Congress. Their reward: 3.5 million dollars and another 2.5 million dollars in pending defense spending (Weeks). All this money was spent for a tool that the Navy requested or has even tried out. Certain watchdog groups such as Citizens Against Government Waste have reported that earmarks have cost taxpayers $271 billion from 1991 to 2008. Other studies have found that the top ten recipients of defense spending earmarks contributed an average of $2.7 million to political campaigns in 2008 alone. Some of the earmarks received result in a return on investment of over 1,300% (Weeks).
Fixing the Problem and Fighting In Court
Plenty of legislation has been trying to limit the effect that private funding of campaigns has on elections and politics in general by limiting the contributions allowed to be made. The most recent legislation on a federal level was the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, more commonly called the McCain-Feingold Act which limited contributions from individuals, private organizations, and other third parties. A Montana law even went so far as to ban corporate funding of campaigns, perhaps an extreme solution to the growing problem. Such solutions have run into roadblocks as well, however. Court rulings have overturned many of the restrictions and bans that have been passed, including the Montana law mentioned earlier (Gouras)(Elliot). The most recent overruling came this past January as the Supreme Court overturned two precedents from 1990 and 2003 rulings that limited the way corporations can influence campaigns. The latter of the two overturned precedents was a portion of the aforementioned McCain-Feingold Act which was seen as a mjor achievement in limiting corporate campaign power (Liptak). This demonstrates that much stronger legislation is obviously necessary to remedy the problem.
Hatfield, Henry. "West Virginia Republican Party Headquarters: What You Should Know." West Virginia Red. 28 July 2009. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. <http://www.wvared.com/?p=1635>.
Campaign Politics: An Unsustainable System
One of the major checks on corporate power is governmental regulation. Its purpose is to protect the interest of the public and do what is best for the country, preventing corporations from taking advantage of less powerful consumers. The evolution of the political system, specifically the electoral and campaign system has jeopardized this governmental protection. Corporate financing of campaigns and donations to key politicians and committee leaders is influencing politics more and more. This is resulting in less politician loyalty to the public and more loyalty to corporate interests.
Buying Your Vote
Campaign spending has risen year after year, with strong correlations seen between spending and electoral success. This could mean that the issues are tending to not be as important as a candidate’s ability to market themselves with campaign commercials, rallies, events, signs and literature. This may lead to politicians’ lessened concern about how to appeal to voters in terms of a political platform.
If a politician has a lessened loyalty to their constituents, then where do their loyalties lie? Since it has become a necessity to have strong financial backing in order to gain any major political office, their loyalties fall to whoever finances their campaign. This results in a highest bidder scenario in which a politician panders to a Political Action Committee (PAC) or interest group. They receive campaign contributions from these organizations, financed by private interests, and in return, provide favorable legislation and earmarked bills. This undermines the purpose of government regulation by creating a conflict of interest. For the 2002, 2004, and 2006 congressional elections alone over 1.7 billion dollars was dished out to candidates in both parties (Cash Flow).
Companies also aren’t picky about who they donate to. Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate interests donated funds almost equally to both the Democratic Party and the GOP (Cash Flow). This should be especially alarming to voters because it means that corporate interests don’t care who gets put into office, just that they have some type of power over them. One example of a corporation directly benefitting from such a scenario is the case of kSARIA Corp. This company produced a fiber optic cable repair tool which it was trying to market to the Navy. Instead of heading to the Navy, the customer who would be using such a device, the company decided to grease the right wheels in Congress. Their reward: 3.5 million dollars and another 2.5 million dollars in pending defense spending (Weeks). All this money was spent for a tool that the Navy requested or has even tried out. Certain watchdog groups such as Citizens Against Government Waste have reported that earmarks have cost taxpayers $271 billion from 1991 to 2008. Other studies have found that the top ten recipients of defense spending earmarks contributed an average of $2.7 million to political campaigns in 2008 alone. Some of the earmarks received result in a return on investment of over 1,300% (Weeks).
Fixing the Problem and Fighting In Court
Plenty of legislation has been trying to limit the effect that private funding of campaigns has on elections and politics in general by limiting the contributions allowed to be made. The most recent legislation on a federal level was the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, more commonly called the McCain-Feingold Act which limited contributions from individuals, private organizations, and other third parties. A Montana law even went so far as to ban corporate funding of campaigns, perhaps an extreme solution to the growing problem.
Such solutions have run into roadblocks as well, however. Court rulings have overturned many of the restrictions and bans that have been passed, including the Montana law mentioned earlier (Gouras)(Elliot). The most recent overruling came this past January as the Supreme Court overturned two precedents from 1990 and 2003 rulings that limited the way corporations can influence campaigns. The latter of the two overturned precedents was a portion of the aforementioned McCain-Feingold Act which was seen as a mjor achievement in limiting corporate campaign power (Liptak). This demonstrates that much stronger legislation is obviously necessary to remedy the problem.
Collage References:
Flores, Louis. "Bloomberg's 3-Tier Campaign Finance Structure." R3call Mik3. 18 Sept. 2010. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. <http://no-third-term.blogspot.com/2010/09/bloombergs-3-tier-campaign-finance.html>.
Hatfield, Henry. "West Virginia Republican Party Headquarters: What You Should Know." West Virginia Red. 28 July 2009. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. <http://www.wvared.com/?p=1635>.
Elliott, Elison. "High Court Allows Foreign Campaign Finance." Global Markets. 31 Jan. 2010. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. <http://globaleconomy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2010/01/>.
"ViiVi - Government." ViiVi - Viivi. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. <http://viivi.net/index.php?key=government>.
"ViiVi - Mainstream." ViiVi - Viivi. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. <http://viivi.net/index.php?key=mainstream>.
Works Cited:
"Cash Flow: Congress Changes Hands — or Does It? - Washingtonpost.com." Washington Post - Politics, National, World & D.C. Area News and Headlines - Washingtonpost.com. 7 Jan. 2007. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2007/01/08/GR2007010800515.html?referrer=emaillink>.
Gouras, Matt. "Judge Tosses Montana Corporate Campaign Finance Ban | CNSnews.com." CNS News | CNSnews.com. 18 Oct. 2010. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. <http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/judge-tosses-montana-corporate-campaign>.
Liptak, Adam. "Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit." Nytimes.com. 21 Jan. 2010. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html>.
Elliott, Elison. "High Court Allows Foreign Campaign Finance." Global Markets. 31 Jan. 2010. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. <http://globaleconomy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2010/01/>.
Weeks, Daniel. "The High Cost of Private Campaign Funding - The Boston Globe." Boston.com. 19 Nov. 2009. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. <http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/11/19/the_high_cost_of_private_campaign_funding/>.
Additional Links:
http://web.missouri.edu/~milyoj/files/Publications/BP2000.pdf
http://web.missouri.edu/~milyoj/files/Publications/BP2000.pdf
http://www.cfinst.org/data/pdf/VitalStats_t8.pdf
http://www.campaignfinancesite.org/history/book-smith.html